Get Commitment With Counteroffer

Make Sure Staying At Current Job Will Satisfy Your Needs

To stay or not to stay. That is the question faced by employees when they walk in to resign but walk out with a counteroffer.

Sometimes, staying works. Mostly, it doesn't.

Ask the fast-track Fortune 500 executive who was offered a high-powered general management position by another company. When she tried to resign, her boss made a counteroffer that sounded too good to pass up: promises of operating responsibility and opportunities for even higher positions.

She stayed, only to leave eventually, frustrated with the whole experience. Her advice to anyone contemplating a counteroffer: ''Don't believe it. Don't entertain it.

''In the heat of the moment, the company will say things that won't come to pass. The company oversells, and the person ends up being disappointed.''

That wasn't the case, however, for Jacki Keagy, manager of consulting services for Personnel Decisions in Minneapolis.

Two years ago, she accepted a counteroffer to stay and has no regrets. ''I had not gone to them and told them my career plans, nor had they asked,'' she said.

An independent contractor at the time, she hadn't realized how much the firm valued her. Her ''resignation'' sparked lengthy conversations with her division head. ''The reaction was one of shock,'' she said, ''so it was flattering.''

Leaving for greener pastures isn't novel. And companies have been making counteroffers for years. You'd think the situation should be simple. It's not.

For both employees and employers, handling a counteroffer has been complicated by downsizing.

''The workplace is in such transition,'' Keagy said. ''The whole issue of loyalty has people confused.''

Employers tell employees not to expect job security, to act as free agents. When employees do that, the company acts surprised and betrayed.

''Many employers - though they won't admit it - will make a counteroffer and then quietly start looking for a replacement,'' warned Bruce Rubin of Rubin Barney & Birger, a Coral Gables public-relations firm. ''Then your leaving is on the employer's timetable and not yours.''

Even when it's a truly valued employee who attempts to defect, bad feelings surface. ''There is anger and mistrust from both sides,'' said Astrid Garcia, senior vice president at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel newspaper.

Garcia recalls one person who, though given a raise, stayed angry. After all, if you've been a dependable workhorse, it shouldn't take your leaving for the company to notice.

As Rubin puts it: ''Why would an employee want to stay with a company that for years has under-recognized and under-rewarded them?''

The unpleasant truth, for employers, is that having to make a counteroffer, like having to fire someone, is tantamount to failure.

Whether you counter as stopgap or because you're trying to remedy past mismanagement, rarely does it work long term.

The arrangements ''created as a response to keep somebody are usually not well-thought out and are usually a liability for both the person and the business,'' Garcia said.

The employee who is ready to jump, you see, didn't just wake up one morning with a job offer.

''When you have a person who wants to leave, the reasons for looking and leaving are very complicated - tons of personal, emotional and professional reasons,'' Garcia said. ''Very seldom can you satisfy that person.''

So what are honest folks to do? The best defense is a proactive offense. If you like the company but have some unanswered issues, approach your boss. Ask for a job review; discuss your aspirations.

If it still doesn't seem as if you're getting anywhere, look elsewhere. When you get an offer, think it over. Will the offer resolve your problems? Or will you just be trading one set of problems for another?

If your employer makes a counteroffer, ask what, specifically, will change. Beware of vague promises. Tune in to what could be mixed feelings, both on your part and your employer's.

''If you do decide to stay, it should be for something concrete,'' Keagy said.